Democracy and Human Rights in Transition: Emerging Challenges and Local Responses

This panel explores the ways in which trade cooperation, mass mobilizations, regulation, and institution intersect with human rights and democratic values. Each paper contributes to a broader understanding of how different political actors and systems—ranging from authoritarian regimes to constitutional democracies—respond to the pressures around civil liberties and political rights under globalization. Paper 1 (Liou and Ye) examines how trade cooperation with China influences partner countries’ labor rights. Paper 2 (Wang) employs a dynamic latent variable approach and presents a novel measure of mass threats in non-democracies. Paper 3 (Lin) explores how Taiwan is evolving regulatory models, jurisprudence, and policy deliberations that reflect the distinctive pathways toward East Asian digital constitutionalism. Finally, Paper 4 (Chen) examines how Taiwan’s subnational legislators navigate formal institutional constraints through informal signaling mechanisms. By examining China’s impact on labor rights, the measurement of mass threats in authoritarian contexts, digital constitutionalism in the EU and Taiwan, and the strategic behaviors of legislators in Taiwan’s unitary political system, this panel sheds light on the strategies used by states and politicians to balance development, governance, sovereignty, and human rights.